Worth School case studies (6)

Impact of partnership work done in 2023 (ISC annual Census 2024)

• 5 state schools involved
• 201-500 state school pupils involved
• 250 staff hours given

Academies or free schools sponsored

• St Paul's Catholic College, Burgess Hill
• Turners Hill Primary School
• Our Lady Queen of Heaven Primary School
• Crawley Down School
• Balcombe Primary School
• Cardinal Newman Catholic School

Impact Statement

Worth School Partnerships Strategy and Impact

School Mission Statement

‘Worth School welcomes its pupils into a Christ-centred educational community, to form them in humility for servant leadership in society.’

 

Objectives:

At Worth we are implementing a strategic plan to achieve objectives designed to meet the criteria of our mission statement.

1. Raise up servant hearted leaders for society.

2. Provide extensive public benefit to our community.

 

These objectives will be achieved by focussing on three key areas:

- Develop lasting relationships with key partners including the Diocese, Parish, schools and charities to improve opportunities for outreach at Worth.

- Connect students with the wider Ecclesial community through Charity and Worship.

- Authentically form students in the Benedictine values of the school as servant hearted leaders.

The programme that we have developed and are implementing provides students at Worth a pathway through their time at school that allows them to be formed in humility for servant leadership in society, building real authentic relationships with people from a range of backgrounds across the community that they will take with them after they have left.

 

Key Partnerships:

Flagship Charities: Mary's Meals (Global) & Crawley Open House (Local).

 

Impact report on Mary's Meals

- Worth supports two schools in Africa, Farsee Korma (Liberia) and  Mwandawkisano (Zambia) since 2018, raising over £42,000 in the process.

- Just £20 donated to Mary's Meals will feed a child for a year through their school, allowing them to choose education over working for food and lifting them out of generational poverty.

- Students at Worth will understand the power and impact of Mary's Meals, engage in student led fundraising projects and connect relationally with students from the schools we support through letter writing, gift sharing and service expeditions.

- While much of this level of relational support had ceased through lockdown, we are preparing to relaunch these efforts in September 2023.

 

Impact report on Crawley Open House

- Crawley Open House provides a variety of support to the homeless in and around Crawley. As a historic partner of Worth we have engaged our students in fundraising, workshop support (e.g. Art) and relational engagement.

- We are developing opportunities for COH to make use of Worth's facilities, starting with Football in September 2023, working towards Art, Music, Drama and Sport workshops held at Worth for guests at COH in the future. This will include asking our Scholars to "give back" by supporting those workshops.

- This is an exciting partnership for both parties with multiple avenues of support for the present and the future including: Food bank drives, employment pathways, skills workshops etc.

 

Community School support: CSYMI UK

Catholic Schools Youth Ministry International (CSYMI) is an exciting model of youth ministry founded in Australia with the support of Australian Catholic University (ACU). Over 200 schools in Australia now run CSYMI. It encourages student formation and leadership, empowers effective pastoral support and meets the need for Chaplaincy provision in schools in an innovative and inclusive model.

CSYMI selected Worth School to be it's centre for establishing a UK variant of this model (CSYMI UK). In regards to public benefit, this includes the recruitment of salaried "Forerunners" (Youth Ministers) living and working at Worth who also serve as Chaplains to local schools.

While we currently provide direct Chaplaincy provision to St Paul's Catholic School in Burgess Hill, we are looking to begin to roll out CSYMI UK on a national scale, with the school employing a National Mission Project Manager to oversee this. 4 schools will run as "pilot projects" in 2023-24, namely: St Paul's Catholic School (Hove), Cardinal Newman Catholic School (Brighton), St Joseph's Catholic School (Slough) and Our Lady Queen of Heaven Primary School (Crawley).

CSYMI UK is currently fully funded by Worth while the Charity is being formalised before it eventually becomes an independent organisation that will continue to be heavily supported by the school.

There is a significant impact of the CSYMI model in forming and empowering student leaders in humility and servant heartedness to support younger students in their school and the wider community. It also provides a career entry pathway into teaching and chaplaincy through work as a "Forerunner" and the formation and training programme on offer.

 

Impact of ongoing Partnerships

In addition to the above, Worth runs an extensive service block activity programme for local charities (e.g. Befriended) as well as the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the JASS Award schemes. Furthermore, the school provides the use of IT and other specialist facilities to local primary schools with 6th form students helping as teaching assistants and teaching staff taking lessons.

 

Staff & Student Outreach Groups

Worth is blessed to have a thriving community of staff members passionate about service who meet regularly as part of the Staff Outreach Group, speaking into the mission of the school, our charity engagement and how we raise up servant hearted leaders in humility for our society.

Some of these staff members have committed themselves to enormous feats of generosity with personal charities that they support off of their own back, with Worth community supporting where possible. One case has been the provision of classroom buildings, a chapel and IT equipment to a school for orphans in Kenya.

Similarly, we will be launching a Student Outreach Group seeded by the House Charity Prefects and the whole school Forerunner (Chaplaincy) Prefects to drive forward students led initiatives for individual House and whole school charities.

 

Final Note

Over many generations the Worth community has fostered a spirit of outreach and servant heartedness. It is wonderful to know that the whole Worth Community; students, staff, parents, parishioners, monastery and Worthians included are so invested in social outreach and charity at an organisational level and individually.

We are proud of the immense work of the people that make up the Worth Community in living out the Benedictine values of humility and service and for the impact of their contribution to the good of society.